Fade Away
by SabaceanBabe
Summary: He looked so wrong, lying there with tubes and wires stuck in him and to him every which way. He lay so still. Still as death.


He looked so wrong, lying there with tubes and wires stuck in him and to him every which way. He lay so still. Still as death. The only sound in the room was the beep of the electronic monitors attached to the wires attached to his skin, the hiss of air from the tubes in his nose.

Annie pulled the room's single chair, covered in institutional-green vinyl, closer to the bed, and took one cold hand in hers as she sat. His hand was like ice – had he been human, it would have worried her. But he wasn't human anymore, was he? None of them were. She raised Mitchell's hand to her lips, gently kissed his knuckles. She wasn't aware of the tears that tracked down her cheeks until one fell on his hand, reflecting the harsh lights overhead in its irregular surface.

"How the hell does a ghost cry, anyway?" she muttered and leaned in closer to Mitchell. She felt as though being closer to him made her more real; if he faded, so would she.

She studied his almost patrician features, the smudge of black lashes against smooth skin, darker than she would have expected from a vampire, the shadow of stubble on his jaw and cheeks. He was so beautiful. It was hard to believe that he'd been frozen in time for a hundred years, that he would always look this way.

Unless he didn't recover from Herrick's attack. Annie laid a palm over the white square of cloth taped over the gaping hole the other vampire had put in his chest. "I know you're technically dead, but please, Mitchell… Please, don't die." Still holding his hand in one of hers, she stroked the back of his hand against her cheek, the fine hairs tickling her skin. "Don't leave me."

She'd been alone for so long when he and George had burst into her life. Her unlife. Her half-life. Her ghosthood. Whatever the hell it was. By the time they'd come, she'd been alone long enough that she'd wanted to stay that way. She'd pushed away everyone else Owen had showed the house to. Some had taken more pushing than others, but they'd all left. Until Mitchell and George.

They'd been able to see her, to talk to her. And sometimes they could even touch her, feel her touch. And as time had continued, as it always did, every day she'd felt more… substantial. More real. Annie didn't want to lose that, didn't want to lose them. She didn't want to lose _him_.

George had Nina, if he didn't muck things up terribly, as Annie herself had done. She'd missed her ride to the afterlife, so she'd found when she'd popped back in at the house. The door was gone, and she didn't know if she'd ever get another chance. But what else could she have done? Seeing Mitchell, lying in the doorway bleeding, actually spouting blood from his mouth, from the horrid wound in his chest… She could never have left him there. She _had_ to help George get him to hospital. Poor George was so beside himself that he could never have done it without her, even though he was the only one who could see or hear her.

Mitchell's hand twitched, his legs shifted a bit beneath the sheets. A frown drew his fine brows together and he moved his head on the snowy white pillow, shaking it back and forth as if he were denying something. A low groan escaped from his lips and Annie tightened her hold on his hand. The monitors beeped crazily.

"Mitchell?"

He became more agitated and she could see his jaw clenching as he ground his teeth together.

"Mitchell, I'm here. You're in the hospital. You'll be okay."

An alarm began to scream, but no one else was there to hear it. George had gone off to find Nina. The doctors and nurses had done what they could and had left before Annie had popped back in, although she was sure one of them must be keeping an eye on the monitors from outside the room. But no one came.

Torn between wanting to stay with Mitchell and needing to find help for him, she finally released his hand. She found herself beside the nurses' station, but there was no one there, either.

"Hello!" she called. She spun around, but saw no one. "I need some help, here!"

Voices approached from the left and she ran in that direction. At the end of the hallway a man in blue hospital scrubs and a woman in a white lab coat approached, paper cups of some steaming beverage in their hands. The man laughed at something the woman said.

In the wink of an eye, Annie stood in front of them. "Please, you've got to come quickly." They walked right through her; it was the oddest sensation Annie had ever felt. Wide eyed she turned and stared after them as the woman stopped abruptly. She looked over her shoulder toward Annie.

"Did you feel that?" she asked her companion. Still holding the hot liquid in the paper cup, she rubbed at her arm with her free hand and visibly shivered.

"Shit," Annie stated. They couldn't see her, obviously, and from here she couldn't hear the alarms sounding from Mitchell's room, so neither could they. Just to test it, she jumped at them and shouted, "Boo!" No reaction other than the guy started telling a joke. "Shit," she repeated. She had to get their attention somehow.

And she was back at the nurses' station, staring at the blinking lights behind the desk, listening to the alarms blaring in Mitchell's room. She was starting to get a bit angry. Sure it was past two in the morning, but this was ridiculous. Growling in frustration, she swept the contents of the desk – charts and pens and a jar full of paperclips and rubber bands – sailing to the floor with a clatter. The pens and clips didn't make much noise, but the charts on their heavy clipboards made a satisfying crash.

Annie smiled as the pair came running around the corner, the woman's lab coat flapping like a flag behind her. "Oh, shit! The stabbing in 206!" She gave a passing glance at the mess on the floor, but flew past it and into Mitchell's room. "Joshua! Get Doctor Phelps!" The man, too, bypassed the mess and ran down another corridor, nearly running George down in the process.

Frowning, pushing his glasses back into place on the bridge of his nose, he asked, "What the hell is going on, Annie?"

Irrational relief flooded through her at the question. "You can see me," she breathed.

"Well, of course I can."

He opened his mouth to say something else, but she grabbed his hand, gratified and even more relieved when his fingers closed around hers and he allowed himself to be pulled along after her into Mitchell's room.


End file.
